Snape Reads Dudley Demented
by clw317
Summary: Snape is fuming after Harry looks in his Pensieve. What happens when he gets some parchment on Potter's life? Will he realize he's been wrong all along? I don't own Harry Potter. Takes place in OotP.


Professor Severus Snape was fuming. The stupid Potter brat just had to go into the bloody penseive, didn't he?

"_Probably got a kick out of it." _He thought to himself.

"Seeing his stupid father torture me." He muttered angrily.

Why did everything happen to him? He never seemed to catch a break.

For those of you who have not yet figured out what had just previously occurred, let me fill you in. You see, Severus had just finished his final Occlumency lesson with Potter. Final, because the brat had just viewed what he judged to be his worst memory, he had lost his best friend.

Hopefully you have now caught on to just what Snape was musing on, if not, I suggest you go read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Now, during his musings, Severus missed the bundle of parchment that seemed to float down to his desk from out of nowhere.

However, when he finally decided that it was time to retire, he did notice the papers, that he had not noticed before.

He eyed the papers warily, searching for any obvious signs of cursing of the parchment. Finding none, he began to search using complicated spells, some of them being of his own design. Once again finding no threat, he picked up the parchment and began to read the print. His eyes looked to the top of the parchment which beheld the title:

**HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX: CHAPTER ONE: DUDLEY DEMENTED**

Now Severus would've liked to say he held no interest in the Potter brat's life, but he was curious as to why the parchment was delivered to him, and why The Order was part of the title. And so, it was albeit reluctantly that he began to read what was sure to be a boring waste of his time.

**The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive. Cars that were usually gleaming stood dusty in their drives and lawns that were once emerald green lay parched and yellowing; the use of hosepipes had been banned due to drought. Deprived of their usual car-washing and lawn-mowing pursuits, the inhabitants of Privet Drive had retreated into the shade of their cool houses, windows thrown wide in the hope of tempting in a nonexistent breeze. The only person left outdoors was a teenage boy who was lying flat on his back in a flowerbed outside number four.**

"_Probably sulking outside, because he didn't get his way."_

**He was a skinny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who had the pinched, slightly unhealthy look of someone who has grown a lot in a short space of time.**

He had to snort at that. It was certainly true.

**His jeans were torn and dirty, his T-shirt baggy and faded, and the soles of his trainers were peeling away from the uppers. Harry Potter's appearance did not endear him to the neighbors, who were the sort of people who thought scruffiness ought to be punishable by law, but as he had hidden himself behind a large hydrangea bush this evening he was quite invisible to passers-by. In fact, the only way he would be spotted was if his Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia stuck their heads out of the living-room window and looked straight down into the flowerbed below.**

"_For one, why is he hiding from the relatives that probably showered him with love, and two, why was he wearing clothes like that?"_

**On the whole, Harry thought he was to be congratulated on his idea of hiding here.**

"Of course." Severus muttered.

**He was not, perhaps, very comfortable lying on the hot, hard earth but, on the other hand, nobody was glaring at him, grinding their teeth so loudly that he could not hear the news, or shooting nasty questions at him, as had happened every time he had tried sitting down in the living room to watch television with his aunt and uncle.**

"_What twisted universe does this take place in?"_

**Almost as though this thought had fluttered through the open window, Vernon Dursley, Harry's uncle, suddenly spoke.**

**"****Glad to see the boy's stopped trying to butt in. Where is he, anyway?"**

**"****I don't know," said Aunt Petunia, unconcerned. "Not in the house."**

**Uncle Vernon grunted.**

**"****Watching the news…" he said scathingly."I'd like to know what he's really up to. As if a normal boy cares what's on the news - Dudley hasn't got a clue what's going on; doubt he knows who the Prime Minister is!**

To say Severus was shocked would be to say that Rome was built in a day.

**Anyway, it's not as if there'd be anything about his lot on our news–"**

"**Vernon, shh!" said Aunt Petunia. "The windows open!"**

It took all his control to not roll his eyes.

"Typical Petunia." He muttered.

"**Oh - yes - sorry, dear."**

**The Dursley's fell silent. Harry listened to a jingle about Fruit 'n' Bran breakfast cereal while he watched Mrs. Figg, a batty cat-loving old lady from nearby Wisteria Walk, amble slowly past.**

"_What, his dear friends didn't tell him she was helping the order?"_

**She was frowning and muttering to herself.**

"Invisibility Cloak" he muttered.

**Harry was very pleased he was concealed behind the bush, as Mrs. Figg had recently taken to asking him around for tea whenever she met him in the street.**

"_Oh is he honestly this stupid?"_

**She had rounded the corner and vanished from view before Uncle Vernon's voice floated out of the window again.**

"**Is** **Dudders out for tea?"**

"**At the Polkisses'," said Aunt Petunia fondly. "He's got so many little friends, he's so popular."**

**Harry suppressed a snort with difficulty. The Dursleys really were astonishingly stupid about their son, Dudley. They had swallowed all his dim-witted lies about having tea with a different member of his gang every night of the summer holidays. Harry knew perfectly well that Dudley had not been to tea anywhere; he and his gang spent every evening vandalizing the play park, smoking on street corners and throwing stones at passing cars and children.**

"_Wouldn't surprise me, it is Petunia's child."_

**Harry had seen them at it during his evening walks around Little Whinging; he had spent most of the holidays wandering the streets, scavenging newspapers from bins along the way.**

He rolled his eyes.

"_Is he really surprised that the neighbors scoff at him?"_

**The opening notes of the music that heralded the seven o'clock news reached Harry's ears and his stomach turned over. Perhaps tonight - after a month of waiting - would be the night.**

**"****Record numbers of stranded holiday makers fill air ports as the Spanish baggage-handlers' strike reaches its second week –"**

**"****Give 'em a lifelong siesta, I would," snarled Uncle Vernon over the end of the newsreader's sentence, but no matter: outside in the flowerbed, Harry's stomach seemed to unclench. If anything had happened, it would surely have been the first item on the news; death and destruction were more important than stranded holidaymakers.**

**He let out a long, slow breath and stared up at the brilliant blue sky. Every day this summer had been the same: the tension, the expectation, the temporary relief, and then mounting tension again… and always, growing more insistent all the time, the question of why nothing had happened yet.**

Severus sighed. He couldn't blame the child for being concerned, however annoying it was when said child decided to be noble and save the day.

**He kept listening, just in case there was some small clue, not recognized for what it really was by the Muggles - an unexplained disappearance, perhaps, or some strange accident… but the baggage-handlers' strike was followed by news about the drought in the Southeast ("I hope he's listening next door!" bellowed Uncle Vernon. "Him with his sprinklers on at three in the morning!"),**

"_Is this going anywhere?"_

**then a helicopter that had almost crashed in a field in Surrey, then a famous actress's divorce from her famous husband ("As if we're interested in their sordid affairs," sniffed Aunt Petunia, who had followed the case obsessively in every magazine she could lay her bony hands on).**

"_Of course." _He thought rolling his eyes.

**Harry closed his eyes against the now blazing evening sky as the newsreader said, "-and finally, Bungy the budgie has found a novel way of keeping cool this summer. Bungy, who lives at the Five Feathers in Barnsley, has learned to water ski! Mary Dorkins went to find out more."**

**Harry opened his eyes. If they had reached water-skiing budgerigars, there would be nothing else worth hearing. He rolled cautiously on to his front and raised himself on to his knees and elbows, preparing to crawl out from under the window.**

**He had moved about two inches when several things happened in very quick succession.**

**A loud, echoing crack broke the sleepy silence like a gunshot; a cat streaked out from under a parked car and flew out of sight; a shriek, a bellowed oath and the sound of breaking china came from the Dursleys' living room, and as though this was the signal Harry had been waiting for he jumped to his feet, at the same time pulling from the waistband of his jeans a thin wooden wand as if he were unsheathing a sword - but before he could draw himself up to full height, the top of his head collided with the Dursleys' open window.**

Now Severus was alert. Who was apparating?

"_Probably his guard."_

**The resultant crash made Aunt Petunia scream even louder.**

**Harry felt as though his head had been split in two. Eyes streaming, he swayed, trying to focus on the street to spot the source of the noise, but he had barely staggered upright when two large purple hands reached through the open window and closed tightly around his throat.**

"**Put - it-away!" Uncle Vernon snarled into Harry's ear. "Now! Before- anyone – sees!"**

Now this came as a shock to Severus. Surely the pampered prince of Gryffindor wasn't abused at home.

"**Get - off - me!" Harry gasped. For a few seconds they struggled, Harry pulling at his uncles sausage-like fingers with his left hand, his right maintaining a firm grip on his raised wand; then, as the pain in the top of Harry's head gave a particularly nasty throb, Uncle Vernon yelped and released Harry as though he had received an electric shock. Some invisible force seemed to have surged through his nephew, making him impossible to hold.**

This didn't surprise him. He knew the boy was powerful, though he wouldn't like to admit it.

**Panting, Harry fell forwards over the hydrangea bush, straightened up and stared around. There was no sign of what had caused the loud cracking noise, but there were several faces peering through various nearby windows. Harry stuffed his wand hastily back into his jeans and tried to look innocent.**

"**Lovely evening!" shouted Uncle Vernon, waving at Mrs. Number Seven, who was glaring from behind her net curtains. "Did you hear that car backfire just now? Gave Petunia and me quite a turn!"**

"_Stupid muggles. Can't stay out of each other's business."_

**He continued to grin in a horrible, manic way until all the curious neighbors had disappeared from their various windows, then the grin became a grimace of rage as he beckoned Harry back towards him.**

**Harry moved a few steps closer, taking care to stop just short of the point at which Uncle Vernon's outstretched hands could resume their strangling.**

"**What the devil do you mean by it, boy?" asked Uncle Vernon in a croaky voice that trembled with ****fury.**

"**What do I mean by what?" said Harry coldly. He kept looking left and right up the street, still hoping to see the person who had made the cracking noise.**

"**Making a racket like a starting pistol right outside our –"**

"**I didn't make that noise," said Harry firmly.**

**Aunt Petunia's thin, horsy face now appeared beside Uncle Vernon's wide, purple one. She looked livid.**

"**Why were you lurking under our window?"**

"**Yes - yes, good point, Petunia! What were you doing under our window, boy?"**

"_He was watching the bloody flowers grow, what do you think he was doing?" _Severus rolled his eyes.

"**Listening to the news," said Harry in a resigned voice.**

**His aunt and uncle exchanged looks of outrage.**

"**Listening to the news! Again?"**

"**Well, it changes every day, you see," said Harry.**

"_Cheek will get you nowhere, Potter."_

"**Don't you be clever with me, boy! I want to know what you're really up to - and don't give me any more of this listening to the news tosh! You know perfectly well that your lot -"**

"**Careful, Vernon!" breathed Aunt Petunia, and Uncle Vernon lowered his voice so that Harry could barely hear him, "-that your lot don't get on our news!"**

"**That's all you know," said Harry.**

"_Oh the whole lot is stupid!"_

**The Dursleys goggled at him for a few seconds, then Aunt Petunia said, "You're a nasty little liar. What are all those -" she, too, lowered her voice so that Harry had to lip-read the next word, "- owls doing if they're not bringing you news?"**

"**Aha!" said Uncle Vernon in a triumphant whisper. "Get out of that one, boy! As if we didn't know you get all your news from those pestilential birds!"**

Severus rolled his eyes. The birds weren't sending news – if Granger and Weasley had followed the rules, that is

He noticed that the parchment was ripped, until the next part.

**He was in trouble now and he knew it. He would have to face his aunt and uncle later and pay the price for his rudeness, but he did not care very much just at the moment; he had much more pressing matters on his mind.**

The parchment was again ripped.

**He turned a corner into Magnolia Crescent; halfway along he passed the narrow alleyway down the side of a garage where he had first clapped eyes on his godfather. Sirius, at least, seemed to understand how Harry was feeling. Admittedly, his letters were just as empty of proper news as Ron and Hermione's, but at least they contained words of caution and consolation instead of tantalizing hints:**

"_**I know this must be frustrating for you… Keep your nose clean and everything will be okay… Be careful and don't do anything rash."**_

"_Of course Black would say that."_

**Well, thought Harry, as he crossed Magnolia Crescent, turned into Magnolia Road and headed towards the darkening play park, he had (by and large) done as Sirius advised. He had at least resisted the temptation to tie his trunk to his broomstick and set off for The Burrow by himself.**

"Only Potter." Severus muttered, rolling his eyes.

**In fact, Harry thought his behavior had been very good considering how frustrated and angry he felt at being stuck in Privet Drive so long, reduced to hiding in flowerbeds in the hope of hearing something that might point to what Lord Voldemort was doing. Nevertheless, it was quite galling to be told not to be rash by a man who had served twelve years in the wizard prison, Azkaban, escaped, attempted to commit the murder he had been convicted for in the first place, then gone on the run with a stolen Hippogriff.**

He had to agree with Potter, for once.

**The park was as empty as the surrounding streets. When he reached the swings he sank on to the only one that Dudley and his friends had not yet managed to break, coiled one arm around the chain and stared moodily at the ground.**

The paper was yet again ripped.

"Why is it torn after almost every bloody paragraph?"

**He did not know how long he had sat on the swing before the sound of voices interrupted his musings and he looked up. The streetlamps from the surrounding roads were casting a misty glow strong enough to silhouette a group of people making their way across the park. One of them was singing a loud, crude song. The others were laughing. A soft ticking noise came from several expensive racing bikes that they were wheeling along.**

**Harry knew who those people were. The figure in front was unmistakably his cousin, Dudley Dursley, wending his way home, accompanied by his faithful gang.**

**Dudley was as vast as ever, but a year's hard dieting and the discovery of a new talent had wrought quite a change in his physique.**

**As Uncle Vernon delightedly told anyone who would listen, Dudley had recently become the Junior Heavyweight Inter-School Boxing Champion of the Southeast. 'The noble sport', as Uncle Vernon called it, had made Dudley even more formidable than he had seemed to Harry in their primary school days when he had served as Dudley's first punching bag. Harry was not remotely afraid of his cousin any more but he still didn't think that Dudley learning to punch harder and more accurately was cause for celebration.**

"_No, I wouldn't think so."_

**Neighborhood children all around were terrified of him - even more terrified than they were of 'that Potter boy' who, they had been warned, was a hardened hooligan and attended St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys.**

"_Hooligan? Yes. Criminal? No."_

**Harry watched the dark figures crossing the grass and wondered who they had been beating up tonight. Look round, Harry found himself thinking as he watched them. Come on… look round… I'm sitting here all alone… come and have a go…**

"Always looking for a fight, eh Potter?"

**If Dudley's friends saw him sitting here, they would be sure to make a beeline for him and what would Dudley do then? He wouldn't want to lose face in front of the gang, but he'd be terrified of provoking Harry… it would be really fun to watch Dudley's dilemma, to taunt him, watch him, with him powerless to respond… and if any of the others tried hitting Harry, he was ready - he had his wand. Let them try… he'd love to vent some of his frustration on the boys who had once made his life hell.**

Severus paled. Potter was starting to sound like him, and that scared him.

He recalled all those staff meetings, Minerva and the old fool, always going:

"You only see his father."

"You see only what you want to see"

**But they didn't turn around, they didn't see him, they were almost at the railings. Harry mastered the impulse to call after them… seeking a fight was not a smart move… he must not use magic… he would be risking expulsion again.**

Severus raised an eyebrow. "Again?"

**There you go, Sirius, Harry thought dully. Nothing rash. Kept my nose clean. Exactly the opposite of what you'd have done.**

**The voices of Dudley's gang died away; they were out of sight, heading along Magnolia Road.**

He found himself, yet again agreeing with Potter. He snorted thinking:

"_Yes, that's the exact opposite of what your father and godfather would do."_

**He got to his feet and stretched. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon seemed to feel that whenever Dudley turned up was the right time to be home, and any time after that was much too late.**

**Uncle Vernon had threatened to lock Harry in the shed if he came home after Dudley ever again, so, stifling a yawn, and still scowling, Harry set off towards the park gate.**

Severus was starting to flashback. How many times had his father threatened the same, if not similar things?

**Harry stepped into the shadow of a large lilac tree and waited.**

"… **squealed like a pig, didn't he?" Malcolm was saying, to guffaws from the others.**

"**Nice right hook, Big D," said Piers.**

"**Same time tomorrow?" said Dudley.**

"**Round at my place, my parents will be out," said Gordon.**

"**See you then," said Dudley.**

"**Bye, Dud!"**

"**See ya, Big D!"**

These people were reminding him scarily of The Marauders, and he found himself sympathizing with Potter.

**Harry waited for the rest of the gang to move on before setting off again. When their voices had faded once more he headed around the corner into Magnolia Crescent and by walking very quickly he soon came within hailing distance of Dudley, who was strolling along at his ease, humming tunelessly.**

"**Hey, Big D!"**

**Dudley turned.**

"**Oh," he grunted. "It's you."**

"**How long have you been 'Big D' then?" said Harry.**

"**Shut it," snarled Dudley, turning away.**

"**Cool name," said Harry, grinning and falling into step beside his cousin. "But you'll always be **'**Ickle Diddykins' to me."**

"_However, I was never that stupid."_

"**I said, SHUT IT!" said Dudley, whose ham-like hands had curled into fists.**

"**Don't the boys know that's what your mum calls you**?"

"**Shut your face."**

"**You don't tell her to shut her face. What about 'Popkin' and 'Dinky Diddydums', can I use them then?"**

"_Now he's asking for it."_

**Dudley said nothing. The effort of keeping himself from hitting Harry seemed to demand all his self-control.**

"**So who've you been beating up tonight?" Harry asked, his grin fading. "Another ten-year-old? I know you did Mark Evans two nights ago -"**

"_Just what I'd expect of Potter and his gang." _He thought wryly.

"**He was asking for it," snarled Dudley.**

"**Oh yeah?"**

"**He cheeked me."** "**Yeah? Did he say you look like a pig that's been taught to walk on its hind legs? Cause that's not cheek, Dud, that's true."**

"_Oh your stupidity never ceases to amaze me Potter"_

**A muscle was twitching in Dudley's jaw. It gave Harry enormous satisfaction to know how furious he was making Dudley; he felt as though he was siphoning off his own frustration into his cousin, the only outlet he had.**

**They turned right down the narrow alleyway where Harry had first seen Sirius and which formed a short cut between Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk. It was empty and much darker than the streets it linked because there were no streetlamps. Their footsteps were muffled between garage walls on one side and a high fence on the other.**

"_I don't care."_

"**Think you're a big man carrying that thing, don't you?" Dudley said after a few seconds.**

"**What thing?"**

"**That - that thing you are hiding."**

**Harry grinned again.**

"**Not as stupid as you look, are you, Dud? But I s'pose, if you were, you wouldn't be able to walk and talk at the same time."**

**Harry pulled out his wand. He saw Dudley look sideways at it.**

"**You're not allowed," Dudley said at once. "I know you're not. You'd get expelled from that freak school you go to."**

"**How d'you know they haven't changed the rules, Big D?"**

"**They haven't," said Dudley, though he didn't sound completely convinced.**

**Harry laughed softly.**

"**You haven't got the guts to take me on without that thing, have you?" Dudley snarled.**

"**Whereas you just need four mates behind you before you can beat up a ten year old.**

_Snape dropped the parchment. Potter hadn't been lying. He honestly didn't find his father's actions amusing. He had been too quick to judge. _

_He picked up the parchment once more, but no writing remained. Severus flipped through the packet, and found no text. Not one word was left, and then the papers exploded into a purple puff of smoke, and he was instantly unconscious. _


End file.
